Marc Andreeson, the cofounder of Netscape, met Senator Barack Obama in early 2007. Mr. Andreeson recalls, “In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more.”
As a social organizer and a lover of new technologies, Mr. Obama could be expected to make good use of such tools in getting elected, and he has done so. What may not be as obvious is that Mr. Obama appears to have a keen interest in using such technologies in the act of governing. And whether Mr. Obama becomes president, or Mrs. Clinton or Mr. McCain do, these new tools have the potential to transform how a government of the People, by the People and for the People communicates and operates. Let us consider the effects of Internet tools on the act of governing by first considering the effect of such tools on the election process.
Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign has made an unprecedented use of Internet tools. At my.barackobama.com Mr. Obama’s supporters can create a profile (complete with name, phone number, email and zip code), blog about their campaign experiences, track the latest campaign news and videos, plan, attend and discuss events, find other supporters, and help raise funds for his campaign. More than 90% of the Obama campaign’s cash has come through donations of $100 or less, much of it through the Internet (see WSJ article). The website can also be used to request further funds from prior contributors, which has likely helped Mr. Obama maintain a significant fundraising advantage. Most importantly, the Obama campaign has put supporters to work not as passive volunteers but as empowered organizers. On my.barackobama.com supporters are given the tools to find, convince and organize other supporters among their neighbors.
As the Rolling Stone reports:
[A meeting of Barack supporters at a recreation center] in San Marcos wasn’t advertised in any traditional sense. Instead, the campaign posted the event on my.barackobama.com — its social-networking site affectionately known as “MyBo” — and e-mailed local residents who had donated to the campaign or surrendered their addresses as the price of admission to an Obama rally. And the volunteers who showed up won’t be micromanaged by Ukman or anyone else from the campaign. They’ll be able to call their own shots, from organizing local rallies to recruiting and training a crew of fellow Obama supporters to man their precincts on election day. To identify and mobilize Obama backers, they’ll log on to the password-protected texasprecinctcaptains.com, download the phone numbers of targeted voters, make calls from their homes and upload the results to Austin headquarters. They’ll also organize early-voting open houses — which will be publicized on MyBo — to boost turnout among core supporters. “Instead of hoping that your neighbors vote,” [Obama staffer] Ukman tells them in an unintentional twist on the campaign’s central theme, “you’re going to take them to the polls.” Source
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Mr. Obama knows that supporters who feel closely connected to other supporters, who are kept closely informed about the cause, who are empowered to take actions in support of the cause, are likely to be not just casual supporters but members of a movement. Internet social network websites allow people to share even small actions that move the cause forward, and shared small actions tend to evolve into larger commitments of time, attention and energy.
Of the candidates, Mr. Obama appears to be particularly aware of this potential change. Mr. Obama has often expressed on the campaign trail that to change Washington, to break the gridlock he sees engulfing both parties, he needs a movement that happens from the bottom up. Although his strongest supporters may feel the election of Mr. Obama will effect this change, Mr. Obama does not seem to be of the same opinion. To change how Washington operates he needs the movement to continue while he is in office.
Consider the tools a potential President has at their disposal. While John F. Kennedy may have been the first television president, Ronald Reagan may have perfected speaking to the camera, and George W. Bush has utilized the power of a sympathetic television channel and talk radio hosts, each of these prior technologies have been largely one way mediums of communication channeled through media companies that distort the relationship a politician seeks to have with their constituency. To organize effectively to carry a message across television and radio, modern presidencies run around the clock operations to drive a particular message through the external media companies that carry the information to the citizens. The administration of George W. Bush has created common talking points that will appeal to a broad base of his supporters, which are used by a network of media figures and commentators that seek to stay on message. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, Karl Rove harnessed direct mail technologies to send targeted political messages to particular constituencies, but he was using a broadcast medium to target small groups of supporters with the message that would most appeal to them. Direct mail is very expensive to maintain on a prolonged basis, and therefore has been used mostly during election campaigns themselves.
Internet tools do not have these limitations. The Internet provides a platform for organizing and energizing social movements in a new way. Therefore Internet tools could have a tremendous effect on not just how governments get chosen, but how governments operate. Internet social networks allow people to stay engaged on a continuous basis. They also allow large numbers of people to receive the same message at the same time, cost effectively, without any filter or immediate commentary from critics. They allow targeted delivery of messages. If you trust the brand of a social network such as my.barackobama.com, if you value its tools and its services to you, you end up trusting many of the messages you receive through it.
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As I noted in a prior post (see The value of transparency to (nearly) everyone), in his first term as a United States Senator, Mr. Obama cosponsored a bill with the Republican Senator from Oklahoma Tom Coburn, which would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance with the goal of making finding information about federal spending as simple to use as a search of the Internet.
Some signs of how Mr. Obama intends to act can be seen in his policy prescriptions. Mr. Obama wants to use “the most current technological tools available” to promote citizen participation in the actual business of government (see his website). He plans to not just solicit the opinions of the public in the work of government agencies and policy makers, but to tap “into the vast and distributed expertise of the American citizenry to help government make more informed decisions.” He also intends to have a website, search engine, and other tools that enable easy tracking online of federal grants, contracts, earmarks and lobbyist contacts with government officials. He intends to use whitehouse.gov to give the American public the chance to review and comment on any non-emergency legislation for five days. When the media expresses skepticism that he can get a healthcare policy passed, Mr. Obama indicates that while he himself can’t, he knows how to get everyone to the table for discussions, make those discussions open and transparent, and invite the American people into the conversation. He intends to require his Cabinet officials to have periodic national online town hall meetings to answer questions and discuss issues before their agencies, and to employ technologies (such as blogs, wikis and social networking tools) to modernize internal, cross-agency and public communication and information sharing.
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To coordinate a mass of people when the issues being discussed are technical and complex, to retain the attitude of a reasoned debate and not descend into purely factional allegiances, is a significant challenge. Even if a moderate consensus emerges on major issues, it is not clear that a moderate majority acting through coercion to force others to adopt their particular policy feelings is something to be esteemed. A broader movement, a more open and transparent system, can be an improvement, but it can also be a curse. The task of reconciling these visions lies ahead.
I'm skeptical he can keep this up once he's in the whitehouse. While white house staff do work to keep up PR once the President is working, it can't be done at the same tempo, nor cover the same ground.